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London’s popular 168-year-old weekly newspaper News of the World is being shut down permanently by parent News Corp. following disclosures of the tabloid’s deeper involvement in controversial hacking of phones of celebrities, officials and private citizens in search of stories.

The sudden closure of the paper was announced yesterday in a strongly worded condemnation of the affair by James Murdoch, deputy chief operating officer of News Corp. and chairman of News International.

News Corp. also owns The Post.

In a company-wide announcement, Murdoch said the paper, the most-read English-language weekly in the world, had damaged its “proud history of fighting crime, exposing wrong-doing and regularly setting the news agenda for the nation.”

“The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account. But it failed when it came to itself,” he said.

Allegations have widened in the four-year-old hacking scandal in the UK that employees of the paper were more widely involved that previously thought in possible illegal behavior, including bribing of policemen and tapping phones of grieving families of crime victims.

The last edition of the paper for readers and its staff of 200 will be Sunday. It won’t carry any advertising, and all revenue from its 2.7 million circulation will be donated to numerous charities.

Calling the shutdown “strong measures,” Murdoch said it was necessary.

“While we may never be able to make up for distress that has been caused, the right thing to do is for every penny of the circulation revenue we receive this weekend to go to organizations — many of whom are long-term friends and partners — that improve life in Britain and are devoted to treating others with dignity,” he said.